“I have to give a toast to my beautiful girlfriend, Kerry Ann,” Jamison said, giving a toast at the graduation dinner his mother planned and reluctantly invited me to. I didn’t care to ever see that woman again—she was pure evil unleashed, as far as I was concerned—yet, there I was sitting beside my mother (who I had begged to come, swearing I’d never speak to her again and get pregnant by some trucker I met at a rest stop) at a dinner table in the very living room where Jamison’s mother had dug into me like an alley cat in a street fight.
“Without Kerry,” Jamison went on, “I don’t think I could’ve made it.”
His mother managed an unconvincing smile. Her eyes narrowed to tight slits, revealing suspicion, she moved not one inch to look in my direction, nodding only when Jamison looked at her. I supposed this was her noble self, her attempt to appear collected and temperate. Yet everyone around the table sat in a quiet nervousness, their eyes transfixed as they waited for her to start the show.
“You put up with me through finals and all of my stress,” Jamison said. “And I just want to say thank you and that your support was needed and appreciated. Cheers!”
He raised one of the two-piece plastic champagne flutes his mother had placed around the table in her poor attempt to decorate (my mother didn’t even bother to pick one up) and took a sip.
“And,” he started, “I have another announcement.”
My mother pinched my arm.
“I know this boy is not about to ask you to marry him!” she tried to whisper. “You brought me here for this? Around these people to embarrass me?”
The transfixed eyes moved from Jamison’s mother to mine, the other sleeper cell awaiting activation.
“You had better say no,” she demanded beneath her breath as she smiled at the onlookers.
“Mother, stop it,” I said.
“This negro is trying to marry up,” my mother said, “and I’m not having it. Not my daughter. I will not allow you to assign your life to this meagerness . . . this place.” She looked around the room as if we were sitting in a zoo.
“I’m not going to med school,” Jamison said finally, catching my eyes.
“What?” his mother said, her eyes widening, a deer about to be hit by a truck. Only I felt the same way. I’d had no wind of what Jamison was talking about. As far as I knew, Jamison was leaving for Cornell.
“I’ve decided to take advantage of my one-year wait, so I can stay here in Atlanta to take care of some things.” He looked straight at me.
“Things? What things?” his mother asked, looking down toward me for the first time. “Hell, no,” his mother jumped up. “You will not ruin everything I’ve worked for to be with that.”
“That?” My mother jumped up too, her flute falling to the floor and splitting in two. “Who are you calling a THAT?”
“That thang on the other end of the table, that’s who!”
“Mother.” I tugged at her arm. “Sit down.”
“Oh, I know how to handle women like this.” My mother went to her purse.
“Gun!” someone screamed. And everyone hit the floor in unison, leaving me, Jamison, and our mothers standing. I kept my eyes locked on Jamison’s. What was he doing? Was he giving
up med school for me? It didn’t make any sense.
My mother finally pulled a sizable gray cell phone from her purse
“Oh, it’s a phone,” someone else said.
“I’m calling the police,” my mother said, bringing the room back to order.
“Mother.” I snatched the phone. “Just stop.”
“I know what you’re going to say, but I already called Cornell. I told them I need a year to handle some personal stuff in my life,” Jamison said. We were walking down his street alone after I put my mother in the car.
“What personal stuff?” I asked.
“I can’t leave you.” He tried to hug me, but I pulled away. Cornell was his big chance. It was what he’d been working toward all of his life.
“I’m reapplying. I’ll be somewhere next year,” I said. “That’s our dream; that’s our plan. Right?”